EPTHow's everyone?
Usually I talk about my casts on here, but today I'd like to link you to my blog on sc2links.com, where I talk about the planetary reach of eSports, the impact of Starcraft 2 as a universal language, and divulge statistics on one of the top five Starcraft 2 sites on the web:
http://sc2links.com/blog/?p=104
Since comments are disabled on the blog, I would love to discuss anything further with members of the community here - unfiltered and raw like the elements.
Hope you enjoy and thanks for stopping by! :D
The full text of the blog is below:
It’s been a really long time since I sat down and wrote a nice, fresh BLOG post – so here it is – the fermented fruit of my bubbling brain juices:
OUR GLOBAL LINKS
SC2Links.com was launched on June 29, 2012 – it was an awesomely stressful day for me. En route to LA from Philadelphia for MLG Anaheim, I literally put the finishing touches on the site as the plane was heading down the runway. When I landed, it was LIVE.
By the end of the first day, we had a total of 3 unique visitors.
OK, maybe I wasn’t the marketing genius then that I am now (HAHA, #lying), but after having my TL thread shut down for solicitation and receiving what seemed like infinite downvotes from Reddit on my first submission ever, I was a little discouraged – OK, I WAS A LOT DISCOURAGED.
But these things tend to happen on the internet… So on the next day, after fueling up with what had to have been the most delicious pork burrito I’ve ever had in my life, I hastily threw up a new TL thread (hoping to get SOME people to see the site before it would be taken down), abandoned my hopes of getting momentum on Reddit (still have anxiety posting there), and distributed out thousands of sc2links stickers to the passerbys of the Anaheim Convention Center (I know some of you still have one of these lying around!!).
Within an hour, we had ~500 unique visitors to the site and the comments received were beyond motivating – suggestions, constructive critiques, praise, wonder, joy, amazement – it was overwhelmingly satisfying to know that I had made a momentary impact on these people’s eSports lives.
Standing here now, 5 months later, I can proudly say this site has grown to become bigger than I ever imagined – OK, it’s not as big as I EVER imagined, but let me run through some numbers that may or may not change your perception of the site and it’s global reach:
25,000+
The number of unique visitors since the inception of SC2Links.com — YOU ALL ROCK, SO HARD!!
100,000+
The all-time total number of pages viewed on the site – ladies and gents, you sure do love every flavor of Starcraft 2.
158
The number of unique countries with at least one Starcraft 2 fan who has visited SC2Links.com – considering there are roughly 196 countries in the world, this is #INSANE.
120
The number of languages SC2Links.com has been viewed in — considering there are anywhere from 6800-6900 distinct languages in the world, this isn’t all that impressive, but I wanted to make the point that Starcraft 2 is the fixture that all of this revolves around – I guess that makes Starcraft a universal language!
5
Top eSports countries (or the ones that like SC2Links the most!), in order of most unique visitors: US, Canada, Germany, UK, Sweden (a close 6th was Australia – the only reason I included this is because I know the SEA scene is awesome and they deserve the attention [cough, cough, step up your VOD game Aussies ;D]).
3
Most viewed player pages, in order: Taeja, Stephano, & Flash.
So there you have it – numbers, statistics, data! Don’t you love data?
At SC2Links, we love data. We ESPECIALLY love digging through the data to scope out what you do enjoy, to realize what you don’t enjoy, and to figure out what we can do to make this site the #1 Starcraft 2 site on the planet.
Without your visits, we don’t exist – your loyalty to the site means so much to us (seriously, THANK YOU).
We craft, refine, and build upon new innovative ideas for the site, day in and day out. The ultimate goal? Make eSports easier to access for every person on the planet.
How to accomplish this? Create the best user experience possible, shatter perceived notions of business development, and always exceed expectations.
The beauty of all this? It’s just the beginning.
Stay tuned in 2013.. :D
